Where I Want to Be
by festeringlilies
Summary: Hogwarts!AU Captain Swan. They might not be students, but they can still be as childish as ever.


Author's Note: Based on a post (linked in the story on my Tumblr) describing an OUAT Hogwarts!AU, but it somehow turned into 90% Captain Swan and 10% Hogwarts. It's been two years since I've written anything meant to see the light of day, much less fanfiction, so I'm a tad rusty - sorry!

Enjoy!

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**Where I Want to Be**

Emma waits until the last of the whispering girls start to leave before squeezing past them into the nearly empty History of Magic classroom. The windows have been opened to let the light in and dust out for the first time in living memory (Binns has been around since even before Gold took up the headmaster post, and while he seems to enjoy his new position among the shelves of Madame French's library much more than his old classroom, he's still not breathing a word) – the spring air is bright and contagiously cheerful, and it makes Emma's step just a bit more lively as she makes her way to the front of the room.

"Professor Jones," she calls down the aisle to where he's straightening a pile of parchment on his desk. At her voice, he meets her gaze with bright blue eyes, and his face breaks out into a broad grin that should not have the ability to make her feel like a blushing teenager at the tender age of twenty-nine. It's not too hard to figure out what those girls had been huddled together to discuss only a moment ago. "What's this I'm hearing about you assigning your sixth years another two feet for the weekend?"

His smile turns crooked as he leans against the desk, and she makes a note to talk to him later about wearing robes as per the dress code because his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, exposing a dusting of dark hair, and it really is distracting to watch the muscles in his forearm move. Not that she hasn't come with a distraction of her own – she crosses her arms as she reaches him, amused to see his gaze flicker to the cleavage she's emphasizing with the stance (okay, so maybe she popped a button or two on her way over, but she isn't the one who's just been teaching). "What of it, Swan? No harm in a little versing in ancient magical naval wars."

"You _know_ Jefferson's apparition lessons start this weekend. I got a lot of complaints when I assigned them extra practice on nonverbal spells. They said you've already assigned them five feet this week."

"Ah," he says, quirking an eyebrow. "And it's my fault, I take it, that our students find History of Magic more worthy of their limited time than Defense Against the Dar-"

"Please, we both know exactly why everyone's suddenly so _interested_ in History of Magic." She takes another step towards him, her stern expression twitching when his eyes flit to her chest, then to her mouth, before locking on hers again, quickly darkening with a heat that makes her breath hitch; she lets the moment stretch, enjoying the way he seems to be holding his own breath, before jabbing him in the chest for emphasis. "And it has absolutely nothing to do with _ancient magical naval wars_."

It's the opening she knows she's giving him – hell, it's been a long morning, and he already knows exactly why she's here anyway – and he takes it.

"You know better than most, don't you, love?" His voice is a whisper as he leans in, a hint of a smirk tugging at his lips, and in the end it's the way his silver tongue wraps around the word _love_, darting between his teeth in a challenge she knows she can't ignore, that does her in.

He tastes faintly like rum when she kisses him, and she wants to accuse him of drinking before teaching, but then his mouth moves against hers with an eager groan and everything but the feeling of his lips, of the heat of him suddenly burning through every inch of her, flies right out the open window along with all of her false pretenses. No one should ever be allowed to kiss like this, she thinks with plummeting rationale, like she should be checking to make sure she hasn't spontaneously caught fire – especially since it's the middle of the day, in an empty classroom, with hundreds of children romping through the hallways only a thin stone wall away… He manages to maneuver her to the edge of the desk, his hands burrowing under her robes to distractedly drag his calloused fingertips up her thigh, before she breaks away.

"Not here," she mumbles, but his lips find a new home in the crook of her neck, warm and wet and inviting deliciously _dangerous_ thoughts to the forefront of her mind – at least for where they are at the moment. "We agreed, no classrooms."

"_You_ agreed." His voice is muffled and rough and stubbornly petulant, his stubble scratching her soft skin and sending a shiver rippling down her spine as he gently lifts her onto the desk. "And you initiated this, so I think everything's fair game at this point."

"I think your office is just as good a place for _games_, if you're feeling playful _Profes-_"

A knock at the door rips through the room, and the feeling is like getting doused in cold water. One second she's pressed up against him from head to toe, stars flashing behind her eyelids from how utterly _perfectly _his hips are grinding into hers, the next he's wrenched out of her grasp and jumped a foot away from her, cheeks blazing in a way that brings a new meaning to the term _red-handed_, Emma notes with mingled pride and dread. She should have just locked the stupid door.

"Hey Professor Jones, is my mom in here?"

Henry's head of mussed brown hair appears through a crack in the door, his shirt untucked and his yellow and black tie done completely wrong, but all Emma is concerned with at the moment is thanking her lucky stars it's him and not a teacher – or, even worse, a student who's already had The Talk.

"Right here, kid," she calls, pleased to hear how normal her voice sounds, despite the fact that she's putting every ounce of her restraint in not moving and making it obvious that she has something to hide. Her pulse is pounding and her face feels like a furnace, and she can only hope she doesn't look as flustered as she feels; teachers can sit on desks and have innocent conversations with other teachers, right? Killian coughs ostentatiously beside her, and she doesn't even want to know how he's faring, since his hair has a tendency of ending up worse for the wear every time she's done with him. "What's up?"

Thank Merlin Henry's a true Hufflepuff right down to the 't' in _trust_ because he doesn't seem at all fazed. "Mom wanted me to remind you that there's a faculty meeting in her office in ten. She said for you and Killian not to be late this time."

"I hope you're not calling her 'Mom' in Potions," Emma says with a wary smile.

"Believe me, lad," Killian drawls from her side, "I'm perfectly punctual when your mother isn't here to-"

"Thanks for the message, kid," Emma says quickly, and she can almost feel the smug bastard's smirk with the shared remembrance of _exactly what kind of activities_ led to their both being late to the last faculty meeting. "You'd better get going before you miss lunch."

Henry face brightens. "I'll see you in class later?"

"First years don't have Defense until Thursday, but I'll see you at dinner tonight." She can't help but smile at his bewildered look – Henry still has issues with remembering his class schedule, despite the fact that he's been at Hogwarts for nearly eight months – before he grins and waves and darts away. She doesn't dare look at Killian again until she hears the door click shut, and when she does he's already fixing his hair and straightening the shirt under his dark vest, shit-eating grin on his face reserved just for her.

"That was interesting."

"_That_ was why I said no classrooms."

"Come on, love, where's your sense of adventure?"

At that, she slides off the desk and sidles up to him so quickly that he looks up with surprise. Slowly, she traces her fingertip along his jaw and feels him tense against her touch.

"I think you know exactly how _adventurous_ I can be," she murmurs, delighting in how he catches his breath, his mouth slowly curving in a way she knows means the best kind of trouble. Grinning widely, she slips out of his reach before he can convince her to stay.

"Heartless woman," he mutters under his breath, and she spares him a wink.

"Kid's orders; can't be late this time," she says cheerfully. His sigh is too loud in the empty classroom when she leaves him behind.

Regina's office isn't very far from Killian's classroom – lucky for them, since she'd completely forgotten about the meeting, and she's willing to bet her next paycheck that after another thirty seconds Killian would have been too far gone to remember too. She makes it halfway down the corridor before feeling his hand ghost against the small of her back, and suddenly he's beside her, no indication of having touched her at all.

They've been doing this for months now – stolen kisses, clandestine meetings after class, between appointments, late at night when he shows up on her doorstep with a bottle of Ogden's finest and a look in his eye that makes her want to forgo all preamble and take him where he stands – and she counts herself lucky that they're both professors with their own offices and quarters in the castle and not students who need to sneak off to the Astronomy tower every time they need a little privacy. It certainly isn't because this particular need for privacy is happening a lot more often lately than it used to, for reasons she can't explain and has no desire to question, but the truth of the matter is that she's spending more time with him than she is with her students on some days, and they're still no closer to publicly putting a label on their relationship than they'd been that cold snowy evening when she'd kissed him for the first time. (She insists it was because they were alone in the castle over the holiday and she was bored, but they both know much better than that.)

"I think the lad's figured us out," Killian says quietly, as if he's reading her mind.

"Mm, I don't think he seemed very surprised."

"No, love, that's because he's already known."

She's considered it before (not necessarily at length – mostly when he's rubbing his thumb along her knuckles under the staff table while she's trying to have an innocent conversation with Henry, her heart beating madly even though the gesture is easily on the more innocent end of their spectrum of activities – but he doesn't need to know that) and waves away his concerns with a flick of her hand. "I doubt it. Otherwise Mary Margaret and David would have already been on my case."

"I wasn't aware your parents disapproved of me," he says with a smirk in his voice, having the nerve to sound roguishly pleased at the thought. "Or are you afraid of what our students might have to say about our little dalliances?"

"Luckily I only need to worry about half of them, thanks to Neal," she replies, laughing at the dark scowl he throws her. Her previous relationship with the Muggle Studies teacher notwithstanding, Killian's always had the most ridiculous grudge against their newest colleague – ever since he arrived, there's been a strange divide between Muggle Studies and History of Magic students, and every year the popularities of the two classes seem to be in direct competition with one another. The topic never fails to make the pair of them riled up, so she placates him with a good-natured smirk: "Don't worry, I heard a group of fifth years talking about N.E.W.T. level History of Magic today, so at least _they_ might give a shit about you and your _dalliances_."

"Quite frankly, there's only one person in this school whose interest in my dalliances I'm concerned about," he says, and then he's nearing her so quickly that her back is suddenly pressed against the cold stone wall, his eyes impossibly blue and gleaming mischievously. She's momentarily distracted by how he's doing that _thing_ with his tongue against his wicked grin before she gathers her wits and shoves him backwards, shooting a panicked look over his shoulder at the thankfully deserted corridor. When she meets his gaze again, he's looking at her with a mixture of amusement and disappointment, and she belatedly realizes her fingers are unconsciously fisted in his shirt collar.

"You know, love, I think if there's a no-fraternization rule between faculty members, your parents have already broken it." His voice is low and laced with humor, but she knows him well enough to recognize the trace of ardency in his tone, in the way he's watching her like he's afraid she'll try to run from this conversation of theirs that never seems to end.

"Of course Regina would never try to kick out two of her _house heads_ for something like that," she mutters, dropping her eyes.

"I believe that's more the headmaster's duty, and besides, we both know you're more than capable of challenging her to a duel if necessary. Fight for my honor and all of that, isn't that right?" She wants to laugh, but it comes out hollow. "Truly, Swan, I don't know why you haven't just taken the deputy headmistress position for yourself. Even Madame Mills knows you could, if you wanted."

"And have that responsibility to distract me from everything that's trying to kill me?" she says dryly. "I doubt you'd be able to find someone else willing to put up with whatever the hell is up with this Defense post when I'm dead."

He grows quiet then, and the silence stretches between them so noticeably that she forces herself to look up (with him, there's never silence – only an endless battle of wit and laughter and _Merlin_ why is he doing this _now_?), because she knows it's not her morbid humor that has him speechless. Rather, it's the fact that they both know this isn't enough anymore, that the secrecy is thrilling to an extent but there's _so much more_ she wants to do with him, and she doesn't want to hide or sneak around to do it – but despite being an ex-Auror, nothing's terrified her more than the knowledge that she doesn't know how to _do this_, to _be with someone_ in a way that makes her heart feel so full and so close to bursting every time he smiles. It's impossible to run now: he's staring at her like she's _precious_, his eyes darting between hers; his hand slowly moves to cup her jaw, his fingers tangling in her hair, and she instinctively leans into his familiar touch with a rush of heat to her face when her heart does a little backflip in her chest.

"You know I'm teasing, love," he says with a soft smile, his breath a whisper against her lips. "I know you're right where you want to be."

"Where I want to be is with you," she replies, and she lets the truth in her words resonate in the air between them before reaching up to frame his face in her hands and kissing him firmly, onlookers be damned.

(In the end, they're fifteen minutes late, thanks to the fact that they hadn't even made it out of his office corridor. She thinks she's clever when she makes Killian wait five minutes before walking into Regina's office after her, but it takes her until the end of the meeting to realize her shirt is still open two buttons down.)


End file.
